Vehicle emergency evacuation device

Abstract

An emergency evacuation device of a vehicle that executes an automatic vehicle stop control based on a command of a driver is disclosed. The emergency evacuation device comprises a driver's physiological condition estimation portion that estimates a driver's physiological condition; a driver's command input portion, operated by the driver, that receives a driver's command input and outputs a command of an execution of an automatic vehicle stop control in accordance with the command input; and an automatic vehicle stop control portion that executes the automatic vehicle stop control in response to the command from the driver's command input portion, wherein based on the driver's physiological condition estimated in the driver's physiological condition estimation portion, the structure of the driver's command input portion, for example, the arrangement of receptor(s) of the driver's command input portion receiving the command from the driver is changed.

The invention claimed is: 
     
       1. An emergency evacuation device that executes an automatic vehicle stop control of a vehicle, the device comprising:
 a driver's physiological condition estimation portion that estimates a physiological condition of a driver; 
 a driver's command input portion that receives a command input of the driver for whether or not an execution of the automatic vehicle stop control is necessary, and outputs a command of an execution start of the automatic vehicle stop control based on the command input; 
 an automatic vehicle stop control portion that executes the automatic vehicle stop control in response to the command from the driver's command input portion; 
 wherein an arrangement of a receptor of the driver's command input portion that receives the command input by operation of the driver is changed based on the physiological condition of the driver estimated by the driver's physiological condition estimation portion, and 
 wherein the estimated physiological condition of the driver includes an abrupt body condition deterioration, a moderate body condition deterioration without reduction of an athletic ability of the driver a moderate body condition deterioration with reduction of an athletic ability of the driver, and wherein:
 at least one of a first area in a hub of a center of wheel or a second area of a lower part of a rim function as the receptor when the abrupt body condition deterioration is estimated; 
 a steering switch on a spoke of the steering wheel functions as the receptor when the moderate body condition deterioration without reduction of an athletic ability of the driver is estimated; and 
 a whole area on the rim of the steering wheel functions as the receptor when the moderate body condition deterioration with the reduction of an athletic ability of the driver is estimated. 
 
 
     
     
       2. The device of  claim 1 , wherein the driver's command input portion judges that the command is inputted when the receptor has received pressing force of a predetermined pattern by the driver. 
     
     
       3. The device of  claim 1 , wherein, the automatic vehicle stop control portion starts an execution of the automatic stopping control, irrespective of a presence or absence of the command input of the driver when the physiological condition of the driver deteriorates beyond a predetermined reference condition. 
     
     
       4. The device of  claim 1 , further comprising a camera equipped on a side of the vehicle and having a variable depression angle and capable of capturing images of road surface from front to side of the vehicle by changing the depression angle; a camera depression angle control portion that controls the depression angle of the camera and a vehicle-roadside distance calculation portion that calculates a distance from the vehicle to a roadside based on a distortion-corrected image in an image area of the image captured by the camera to which area the distortion correction is applied, the image area being determined from the depression angle of the camera at a time of the camera capturing the image;
 wherein the camera depression angle control portion controls the camera depression angle so that an image of a stop line is detected in the image captured by the camera at a time of an execution start of the automatic stopping control of the vehicle; and the automatic vehicle stop control portion judges whether or not the vehicle can be stopped to the stop line based on the distance from the vehicle to the roadside calculated in the vehicle-roadside distance calculation portion and a vehicle speed; and 
 wherein when the vehicle can be stopped to the stop line, the camera depression angle control portion controls the camera depression angle such that an image of the stop line always exists in the image captured by the camera during the execution of the automatic stopping control of the vehicle; and the automatic vehicle stop control portion controls a position of the vehicle using the distance from the vehicle to the roadside calculated in the vehicle-roadside distance calculation portion and the vehicle speed.